UPDATE (10/1/12 9:42 PM): More updates on PNP’s damage control.UPDATE (10/1/12 7:15PM): A press statement in this PNP PIO account denies any official connection to the “Philippine National Police (PNP)” page, which has already been taken down.
UPDATE: The FB thread below has been taken down.

The Cybercrime law hadn’t even taken effect, but that didn’t stop the Philippine National Police (PNP) from abusing it. At least that’s what the admin of their Facebook page did when they encountered an unwelcome comment.

The comment was a response to PNP’s post about criminology students doing poorly in English. Here’s a screenshot just in case they delete the comment, too:

I say “too” because right now these are the only comments I can read out of the ones included in a screenshot that is spreading all over Facebook. Here it is, just in case they get Facebook to take it down as well:

As several commenters have pointed out, the law doesn’t take effect till Wednesday, October 3. Yet the “CIDG Anti Transnational Crime is now conducting background investigation against” the commenter. This may or may not be true, but one thing is certain: some who read PNP’s comment are now thinking twice about speaking their mind. And when anyone is afraid of exercising their right to freedom of speech, something is definitely wrong.

I think you don’t know that they wasted 50$ million on this piece of crap law… they can’t even catch normal pirated CD sellers, didn’t you think that pirated sellers will have more customers since people will start buying from them more often? because some people will now start to be scared of downloading files from their houses…

even if you say they are gonna plan to hunt down pirate sellers, what?! they’re gonna waste more money? when there’s a lot of bigger problems to be dealt with?

Actually, I'm more worried about the law's provisions regarding libel. As they're written right now, libel is deemed any statement that is is found to have malicious intent, REGARDLESS if it's true or not.

This basically means that even watchdog groups can be criminally charged if they accuse somebody of being a liar and a thief, even if the one they're calling out IS a liar and a thief.

I wouldn't waste my breath on archie if I were you. It's obvious he's only trying to troll people here, and he's not making a very good effort.

Do you know that it's a violation of Facebook policy to create a profile account for an organization? PNP, you are in violation of Facebook's Statements of Rights and Responsibilities (just tryin' to help you out here). You should create a Facebook page instead of an individual account. 🙂http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=205056142869433…?

Beautiful close. Read my mind. As an outsider, used to the fairness and protections of civil society, I find bizarre how common thuggery and crude efforts to intimidate are here in the Philippines. From election murders to the ampatuan massacre, it is clear that the step from thug to physical violence is short. That the those who should be protecting us are behaving as thugs is extraordinarily offensive. Senator Sotto threatening "cyber-bullies" from his pulpit on the Senate floor like a two-bit dictator is also offensive. It is my guess that the people he perceives as bullies have more interest in well-being of the Philippines than does he with his ethically-challenged view of what stealing someone else's original work means. I didn't know Thomas Jefferson, but I am confident Senator Sotto couldn't even polish his hat brim.

Because they only take action when their own interest is affected. Quite frankly, no one cares about the hacked victims… They only care about themselves… Reputation, good image… I'm infuriated. That thing has no right to make rules that it breaks.

Election's gonna be hilarious though… So many people to be jailed. Hope they have enough room for the whole population~

Seeing the comment of Archie Arevalo, I felt that if I were the PNP officer I would greatly be insulted. (I mean we all hate being branded as immoral or unethical most especially if you're striving to be a good person in your job.) Now of course I understand that this doesn't give the PNP admin officer to threatening to unleashing the cyber crime team against him.

I believe this is a case where both parties had a lack of respect for one another. The PNP FB admin is at fault, similarly with Archie. I believe that each Filipino should be held with the same standards as those in office…

So what am I saying here? Well I don't think this is an abuse of the Cyber Crime Law – it's just 2 people having a disagreement. (Clearly PNP deleted the thread because they knew it was a BAD reaction. The the FB admin is probably getting reprimanded as we speak.)

Now, I just have to comment on the "Fuck You" portion of this article. It made me feel that you're same as Archie and the PNP admin in the thread who was unable to control their feelings and ended up disrespecting other people. Now, I understand that this is your post, and you're going for a dramatic ending. But wouldn't it be more professional, and more respectable of you just removed the "Fuck You" portion? (At the same time you're making this article more shareable…

I don't mean to spark a debate, I'm just voicing out my thoughts here. I hope it helps 🙂

Sabi nila fake account daw yun. I checked, though, and it has been up since January 2011. The posts are mostly official PNP news naman, so it's weird. Also, why has this never been taken down as a fake entity if it has been up for nearly two years now and it (supposedly) is not connected with the "real" PNP at all? I dunno. Something seems off.